Imagination and creativity.

The creative process is a human activity aimed at creating a new, original product. The creative act is preceded by a long process of accumulating relevant experience, knowledge and skills. And it is characterized by the transition of a number of different ideas and approaches to solving a problem into their unique new quality, which will be the solution to this problem.

Imagination and creativity are closely linked: imagination is formed in the process of creative activity. Specialization of various types of imagination is not so much a prerequisite as the result of the development of various types of creative activity. Therefore, there are as many specific types of imagination as there are specific, peculiar types of human activity — constructive, technical, scientific, artistic, pictorial, musical, etc. All these types of imagination, which are formed and manifested in various types of creative activity, constitute a kind of the highest level - creative imagination.

The power of creative imagination and its level are determined by the ratio of two indicators: 1) how much imagination adheres to the restrictive conditions on which the meaningfulness and objective significance of his creations depend; 2) how new and original are different from the directly given to it generation. Imagination, not satisfying both conditions at the same time, is fantastic, but creatively fruitless. [4, p.297].

Imagination plays a significant role in every creative process. Its value is especially great in artistic creation. The essence of the artistic imagination is primarily to be able to create new images that can be a plastic carrier of ideological content. The special power of the artistic imagination is to create a new situation not through violation, but under the condition that the basic requirements of life reality are preserved [4, p.301].

Imagination can function at different levels. Their difference is determined primarily by how actively, consciously a person is in this process. According to the severity of activity, two types of imagination are distinguished: passive and active. For the passive imagination, the creation of images that are not embodied in life, programs that are not implemented at all and cannot be carried out is characteristic [3, p.298].

Unlike passive imagination, active imagination can be recreating and creative. Recreating imagination is based on the creation of those or other images corresponding to the description. This kind of imagination is a mandatory attribute of educational activities and is manifested when reading literature. Creative imagination is expressed in the creation of a new, original image, idea. Objectively, new images are images of such objects that do not exist in reality either in material or in ideal form. Subjectively, the new is what is new for this person. Creative imagination is an active, purposeful operating with visual representations in search of ways to meet needs.

Images of imagination are created using different methods and techniques. The most clearly analytical-synthetic nature of the imagination is manifested in the admission of agglutination. Agglutination is a combination, the fusion of individual elements or parts of several objects into one image. The analytical process of creating images can be considered as an emphasis, which consists in the fact that in the created image there is any part, the detail is highlighted and emphasized. Reception of emphasis can be further developed if it is extended to the entire object. This can be achieved in two ways: by increasing the object compared to reality (hyperbole) or reducing it (lithol). The construction of imagination can go and synthetic way. If the ideas from which a fantastic image is created merge, the differences are smoothed out, and the features of similarity come to the fore, then they speak of schematization. Schematization is like a preparatory stage for the most complex reception of creative imagination - typing, the process of separation and connection, as a result of which a certain image arises.

The connection of images with actions and operations can be traced along several lines. First, actions are a means of forming images. An image is always a result, a product of certain actions: perception as a sensual image is the result of the action of perception, a concept is a product of mental actions, etc. Secondly, operations constitute the psychological mechanism of images. Actualization of the image, its restoration by the subject is always the fulfillment of those operations that underlie the image. The use of the image in the process of solving various problems occurs by including it in one or another action.

Thus, although the link between images and actions is two-sided, the leading role belongs to action. The image without the action of the subject can neither be formed, nor restored, nor used. Consequently, it is possible to control the formation of images only through the actions [5, p.31].

The imagination of a child is not stronger than that of an adult, but it takes up more space in his life. At school, children's imagination becomes an important prerequisite for both learning and aesthetic education. The student imagines situations that he has not encountered on his own experience, creates images that do not have a specific analogue in the surrounding reality, and this contributes to the assimilation of knowledge and the development of creative thinking. Teachers often rely on the possibilities of schoolchildren's imagination when it is necessary to build a sensual or rational (conceptual) image based on the material being studied [6, pp.198-199].

Music is the art of auditory impressions. On the basis of auditory impressions, an idea of ​​various musical phenomena is created. Therefore, among the many qualities that characterize the creative face of a musician, his auditory abilities occupy a central place. The musical ear is clearly stratified into two areas of manifestations that are inseparably connected and mutually conditional each other's functional capabilities — the sphere of musical perception and the sphere of musical-aural representations.

The performing concept of a musical work arises from the inner-hearing images. Its depth and usefulness depends on the performer’s ability to present the “sound picture” in all its details. Based on the stock of representations of his inner ear sphere, the performer plans and bears a sound image of a musical work in his imagination. The variety of musical-aural representations accumulated by memory is the building material from which the auditory imagination of a musician creates his bright colorful generalizing images. [1, p.182].

The musical image that arises as a result of the functioning of the musical imagination is dynamic. Obeying a general psychological pattern, the musical image develops from simple to complex and is constantly being improved. In the process of forming the performing concept of a musical work, the inner-hearing image always anticipates the actual sound. He is, as it were, the inner-hearing ideal of expressiveness of the musical image, which directs the creative search for a performing musician. That is why the full-fledged embodiment of the artistic intention of a musical work presupposes the presence of a large arsenal of musical-aural ideas. Emphasizing the impossibility of creative human activity without the anticipating possibilities of the imagination, the following should be noted: “Imagination always anticipates a little, runs ahead and thereby directs and improves the ideal image” [2, p.34-35].

An essential role in determining the direction in which the imagination is developing is played by the direction of the personality — interests that create special foci of emotional sensitivity associated with them. Each person has some kind of “piece of fantasy”, but each person has fantasy and imagination in their own way [4, p. 308].

Literature.

1.Grzhibovskaya R.N. Musical imagination // Theory and methods of learning to play the piano [under total. ed. A.G. Kauzova, A.I.Nikolayova] .- M .: Humanist. Center of VLADOS, 2001.- 368с. P.172-188.

2.Ignatyev E.I. Imagination as a means of knowledge and management of creative activity // Questions of the psychology of labor. - Yaroslavl, 1966.

3. General psychology / Comp. E.I. Rogov.- M .: Humanity. ed. Center VLADOS, 1998.- 448с.

4. Rubinstein S.L. Basics of general psychology. - SPb .: Peter Kom, 1999.-720s.

5. Talyzina N.F. Management of processes of mastering knowledge.- M., 1975.

6. Fridman L.M. Psychology of children and adolescents. - M .: Publishing House of the Institute of Psychotherapy, 2004.- 480s.